Every December, right around this time, it is really impressive to sit back and look at the last year in smartphone technology. As with previous years, 2012 saw explosive growth and tremendous advances in the hardware we use today. At the end of the day, however, one phone usually stands out among the rest as the best smartphone of the year.

Defining “the best”

First off, the parameters for determining the best phone overall. We start off my shifting the calendar year a little, making the windows we consider 2012 to actually be from November 2011 to November 2012. This eliminates phones like the Droid DNA that have barely been out for a month, but were also far more advanced than phones released earlier in the year. Details like how well the phone sold aren’t as relevant to us, instead we look at the cost, performance, and availability of the phone. After comparing all of the phones that have been available this year, the winner is…

The Samsung Galaxy S3

You don’t get much more available than the GS3. Samsung worked hard to make the phone purchasable on every major US carrier, as well as most of the international carriers. The phone is available on networks that support LTE, as well as networks that are still using HSPA+.

With that in mind, the Samsung Galaxy S3 is really two different phones with identical outer shells and software. The LTE variant of the phone is a dual-core Snapdragon S4 with 2GB of RAM, while the HSPA+ variant is a quad-core Exynos with 1GB of RAM. This didn’t make for any noticeable difference in performance when it came to most tasks, but allowed Samsung to play to the strengths of the networks they wanted the phone on.

Samsung also offered the Galaxy S3 in an unlocked form, for those who would prefer to purchase the phone without any carrier involvement.

Regardless of how you bought the Galaxy S3, the wide availability of the phone made it a much more appealing target for accessory manufacturers. While some Android smartphones struggle to have more than a few cases made for the phone, the Galaxy S3 has had inductive chargers, desktop and car docks, and even a matching iPod Shuffle-like MP3 player made by Samsung. The only phone this year to come close in this respect was the iPhone 5, but the secure element Apple put in the Lightning port made it so not nearly as many accessory manufacturers have been able to release things like docks for the new iPhone.

Battery life and overall performance are two big deals for smartphones, and the Galaxy S3 has regularly appeared at the top of benchmarks charts. Given the network flexibility, the Galaxy S3 was well supported on the fastest networks in the US. The GS3 also delivers what most consider a “full day” of battery life, in that it is capable of delivering at least 10 hours under stress. Compared to the Nexus 4, the Incredible 4G LTE, and the Droid RAZR M, Samsung was the only manufacturer able to compete with the battery like on the iPhone 5.

Samsung phones are also well supported by the Android modder and hacker community. The Galaxy S3 was rooted quickly, and is well supported by a number of third party ROMs.

Samsung took Android in an entirely separate direction with the Galaxy S3. For years, the Samsung-made TouchWiz UI was by far the worst of the Android shells. The colors used were terrible, and in many ways it just plain felt like TouchWiz existed to make the phone look like an iPhone. This most recent version of TouchWiz was a complete UI overhaul, filled with natural gestures and features not found on other phones. TouchWiz for the Galaxy S3 borders on having too many odd little features that can be activated to make the phone feel more personal, but the overall experience is really positive. Samsung has succeeded in making their vision of Android feel unique, something I don’t think any of the other manufacturers have been able to accomplish yet.

Samsung is being met with some stiff competition already for 2013. We’ve started to see phones with 1080p screens, quad-core processors with LTE, and inductive charging is starting to feel more and more like a standard. In the mean time, Samsung can look back at 2012 and know that this was the year of the Galaxy S3.